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Local Authorities

Three Rivers District Council

Three Rivers District Council, are set to become one of the first local Councils to achieve corporate certification for the whole of their services.

The challenge:

Three Rivers faced a particular challenge: how to produce sufficient evidence across its 18 Council departments, to satisfy the requirements of the Charter Mark standard.

A two-phased approach

First phase, a thorough review of the core corporate documents used throughout the Council was undertaken at assessment. Then in the second phase the assessors conducted separate, detailed reviews of the Council's 18 departments, in order to verify that these individual services met the Charter Mark standard.

So far, 11 of the services have been successfully reviewed, with the remainder due for completion early 2007. Once all 18 reviews have been completed, Three Rivers District Council will achieve full corporate Charter Mark status.

Three Rivers is already benefiting from Charter Mark

Even before full certification, Three Rivers has found that the Charter Mark certification process is helping to raise the Council's profile in the wider community, and has improved staff morale by:

• Reassuring stakeholders of the high quality and consistent delivery of services in the community
• By raising confidence levels within the Council itself, Charter Mark has had an impact on morale: endorsing the efforts of Council Officers who often carry out their duties in demanding circumstances. Officers really do feel their efforts are recognised.
• By demonstrating to government inspectors and regulators that Three Rivers is focused on delivering the best service to its customers.
• Outside in the wider community Charter Mark is a sign of quality, assuring residents of their right to a high standard of service.

Steven Halls, Chief Executive of Three Rivers District Council says:

'To achieve corporate Charter Mark status will be very exciting as it means that everyone in the district and beyond can expect a high level of service from us across the board. Our Officers have worked extremely hard throughout the assessment process to achieve Charter Mark status, and will work hard to maintain this standard so that our residents, stakeholders and partners will receive consistently excellent customer service.'